


Drifting Through Stars

by nonisland



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Affectionate Peer Pressure, Alternate Universe - Fans & Fandom, Alternate Universe - Modern Fódlan Setting (Fire Emblem), Bernadetta von Varley's Father's Bad Parenting, Developing Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Long-Distance Relationship, Prompt Fic, reconnecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29481147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonisland/pseuds/nonisland
Summary: There had been this one really long slow-burn WIP that she started following in her junior year, “Per Aspera” by a user called nightingale, that hurt her heart, but it also kind of made her feel…seen. Everyone in it was like a handful of stained glass, bright and beautiful and broken.Fandom is an escape for a lot of people, and sometimes a mirror too, and always a community.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc/Bernadetta von Varley
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	Drifting Through Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mondegreen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mondegreen/gifts).



> This was, uh, prompted for that “give me a ship and an AU and I will write a three-sentence fic” twitter meme I was amusing myself with yesterday. It was not, in any way shape or form, originally posted to Twitter, because it is _over three thousand words long_.
> 
> **Content note:** Contains a brief scene of emotional/verbal abuse toward Bernadetta from her father, near the beginning. Also, while the flashback timeline is very vague, Bernadetta and Yuri first interact while she’s somewhere between 16 and 18, and he is, as in canon, two years older (no romance occurs until several years later); please be aware of that if it’s going to be a problem for you.
> 
> Title is from Josh Groban’s “[If I Walk Away](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FpLzV0R5dY)”: _Walk away / Head for the light of day / Follow a brighter way / Out of the cold and dark_.
> 
> * * *

In high school Bernadetta had spent a _lot_ of time on the internet. Well, she still does, because the internet is great, but the point is that her father had really wanted her to go to St. Cichol University, like he and a lot of his creepy political friends had, and the more she heard about it the less she wanted to go. It was easier to just pretend none of this was happening, and read a lot of fanfic, and carefully scrub the browser history after so she could say she’d been working on her homework.

_Starsailors_ had been really big then, and Bernadetta’s father had hated it enough that she was really curious about what it was _about_. It turned out to be about a group of misfits assigned to a deep-space mission to get them out of the way, which might have been fine with him except that it got really into some religious questions? Bernadetta isn’t really an expert on that even now. Also a few of them were criminals, and one was an unmarried mom, and it was just—it’s a pretty good show, actually, even though the fandom had moved on by the time Bernadetta was able to watch it.

There had been this one really long slow-burn WIP that she started following in her junior year, “Per Aspera” by a user called nightingale, that hurt her heart, but it also kind of made her feel…seen. Everyone in it was like a handful of stained glass, bright and beautiful and broken. Maxim had nightmares about his past, and he was still one of the heroes. He got _comforted_ for the nightmares. Raoul was afraid of failing, all the time, and even Bernadetta could tell he wasn’t being set up to fail at the end of the story. And it _wasn’t_ okay that Karina’s ex-husband hadn’t let her leave the house, until she finally applied to the Space Exploration Force, and everyone on the ship just understood that she hated locked doors.

That chapter was when Bernadetta left her first actual comment.

Nightingale responded, and they started, well, talking. They were friends, maybe? She really hadn’t had any friends to compare to, but even now she’s pretty sure they were friends. But she wasn’t allowed to do instant messaging, so they could never talk as much as she wanted to.

She drew nightingale a few pieces of fanart, and he—he’d told her he was a guy when she asked—asked if he could share them with the rest of his readers, like they were actually good enough to share. Which they weren’t! They weren’t good to start with, and she’d had to scan them in one of the art classrooms at school, and _ugh_. But he was so persuasive she finally said it would be okay, and then _other people_ said nice things too.

Anyway.

“Per Aspera” finished updating early in her senior year, and Bernadetta cried when it did, partly because it was over but mostly because it was all _okay_ , even after everything that had happened. Everyone was okay.

She ended up applying to Garreg Mach University, which wasn’t even in Adrestia at all so her father was going to _hate_ it, and somehow got enough in scholarships that she could just…go. They had a screaming fight about it when he found out, or rather he had a screaming fight and Bernadetta tried to curl up until she didn’t take up any space at all, and tried not to make any sound when she cried because that would just make him angrier.

Afterwards, when she went to reread Chapter 14 of “Per Aspera,” the one where Karina talked about leaving, she found out that the whole fic had been deleted two days ago in what the site was calling “a purge of materials not appropriate for all of our readers.” Nightingale’s account, like a lot of others, had been suspended.

It was…fine. It was fine! She couldn’t remember how the line went, or remember the feeling of someone taking something too heavy for her to carry away from her for a little while she thought about Karina instead of herself, but it was completely fine, she was fine, it wasn’t a big deal, everything was going to be fine.

She almost didn’t go to Garreg Mach after all, but her mother talked her into it.

* * *

Sometimes she’ll see something that reminds her of nightingale, or of “Per Aspera.” Or, well, kind of a lot of the time, especially because she’s still doing fanart and every time she posts something she thinks about him encouraging her, and it’s _stupid_ but—ugh, she misses him. She’d kind of had a crush on him, maybe, not that she’d ever admit it because anyone who didn’t laugh would just feel sorry for her, but also he’d just been…nice, in a mean way. Like he actually liked her, and believed in her, even when he was teasing her.

It’s been three years. About a year ago she started trying to write fic of her own, and she’s not happy with _any_ of it but Sylvain from her sociology class picked up one of her notebooks when she dropped it and complimented her until she agreed to write more just to make him go _away_ before she _died_ of embarrassment. So that’s, um, kind of a thing now.

The new big fandom is _Prince of Lions_ , which is kind of silly but in a fun way, and Bernadetta is probably less scared to be writing for it than she would have been of writing for _Starsailors_ , which was just…well, not to be mean, but it was a better show. Also maybe she’s a little braver now?

_Prince of Lions_ is trope-y fun, though. Ashe from her botany class and his friend Ingrid from the fencing team watch it too, and it’s nice to be able to _talk_ about something she’s enjoying with people sometimes if she wants. Also Ashe is right, the actor playing Loog is definitely cute. Bernadetta’s roommate Dorothea says she isn’t really into historical dramas, but she encourages Bernadetta to watch without headphones anyway and she definitely has opinions about the _Prince of Lions_ writers deciding to make Pan a girl.

And they all…like Bernadetta’s ideas?

“That’s because your ideas are _good_ ,” Sylvain says in the student center when she asks, texting with one hand and stealing Ingrid’s coffee with the other. “Oh, shit, that was not who I meant to text.”

Ingrid rolls her eyes and takes her coffee back. “You should post something,” she says to Bernadetta.

Bernadetta shakes her head so hard she thinks her brain might rattle in her skull. Can you give yourself a concussion? She is not going to look it up, she doesn’t want to know. “It’s all terrible!”

“I’m sure it’s not,” says Ashe, but Ashe is always nice to everyone and Bernadetta doesn’t trust him.

“It’s not,” Sylvain says. He gets up and comes back a minute later with two muffins from the snack kiosk, one of which he gives to Ingrid, and then steals her coffee again while she’s distracted. “Did either of you persuade her while I was gone?”

Ingrid makes a protesting noise. Ashe says, “Well, neither of us have read her writing, so.”

Sylvain waves that off. He doesn’t even _like_ the show, so Bernadetta has no idea why he cares this much. “I’m just saying, it’s good.”

* * *

Bernadetta ends up posting one of her fics after all. Everyone’s moved to a new site by now, not the one that ended up blowing itself up by deleting so much of its content—she’s figured out in the three years since that her father had helped pass the legislation that motivated the purge, and that hurts _worse_ —but even though the interface is different and she’s never posted fic before it’s still a funny twisting ache in her heart. She wonders where nightingale is, and how he’s doing.

She gets comments. They’re nice ones, which is…okay, maybe her friends were right. She posts another fic, and that one gets mostly nice comments too. One of them tells her her characterization of Kyphon doesn’t match what the actor said in an interview, and Dorothea asks if Bernadetta wants her to tell them off. Bernadetta doesn’t, but she doesn’t run away and hide either.

_Prince of Lions_ is halfway through the first season when the daily reclist she follows links to a new fic.

> “Unshielded”, by **nightingale** [Adult, 17K words, complete; Loog/Kyphon, Kyphon/Pan]: _Power is no guarantee of companionship._ This painfully gorgeous oneshot takes an unrelenting look at Loog’s isolation as he considers rebellion against the Empire, and ends on a hopeful note that feels really earned. If the show itself takes a similar route, we won’t be sorry.

Bernadetta clicks so fast she almost sprains her finger.

* * *

It’s the same nightingale. Even before she messages him, even before she even looks at his _profile_ , Bernadetta knows it’s the same nightingale. He’d picked his name out well—even his prose is musical. The rhythm of it gets into her head like a waltz beat as she reads.

And yes, okay, fine, she does cry at his new fic too, even though she’s twenty-one and supposed to be grown up now, she’s still _allowed_.

When she checks his profile, even though she already knows it’s him, she sees he’s reposted “Per Aspera.” She has to step away from her computer for a few minutes. She can’t even see the screen through her tears, and her hands are shaking too hard to type.

Dorothea comes back from choir and stops dead in the doorway. “Who said what?”

Bernadetta shakes her head and gulps air. “Nobody, it’s—it’s good, it’s my friend.”

“Nightingale?” Dorothea has heard all about nightingale, even the embarrassing crush story. She comes and sits down on the edge of Bernadetta’s bed and puts an arm around her. “You found him?”

Bernadetta nods.

“That’s wonderful!”

“Do you think he’ll remember who I am?” Bernadetta asks, sniffling. “I wouldn’t remember who I was! I was just one of a million people who really loved his fic. Maybe I shouldn’t even—I’m just so glad he’s okay. That’s all I ever really wanted to know.”

Dorothea hands her a tissue. “You should definitely say hi.”

* * *

Bernadetta agonizes for hours over what to say.

“Maybe I should draw him something,” she says.

Ingrid, who’d come over to ask Dorothea a question about the fencing meet next weekend, shakes her head. “You don’t need to bribe your friends.”

“I don’t even know if we’re friends,” Bernadetta wails.

Sylvain, who’d come over to ask Bernadetta for the next chapter of the longfic she’s trying to finish and stayed to try to convince Dorothea to come with him to an experimental theatre thing on Friday, says, “No, come on, you’re friends. You talked all the time.”

“Of course you’re friends,” Dorothea says.

Ashe isn’t here to join in the relentless optimism, which is good both because it’s a _lot_ of optimism and because Ashe had been going to ask out this guy in his culinary science class and if he hasn’t turned up for comfort that means it probably went well, and Bernadetta is happy for him, she really is, but also, she is still kind of scared. And lonely. Not that she _doesn’t_ want her friends to be happy, but.

Okay, _fine_. “What do I even say?” she asks, picking up her laptop.

“Leave a normal comment,” Sylvain says, “then tell him it’s great to see him again, remind him of who you are using whatever handle you went by, and ask him if he’s single.”

Bernadetta shrieks and covers her face with her hands. Dorothea barely manages to catch the laptop before it slides onto the floor.

“ _Don’t_ ask him if he’s single,” Ingrid says, completely unnecessarily.

Dorothea puts the laptop on her own bed. “The rest of it’s good, though.”

* * *

Nightingale _does_ remember her. He gives her his e-mail address and tells her to call him Yuri—she isn’t actually sure from the way he says it that that’s his name, but after all she might be a serial killer, he doesn’t know!—and they just…talk, really talk this time, first through e-mail and then through messenger.

Yuri graduated university last year. He’s in…social work, she thinks, or maybe like town government. From the weather he talks about he’s probably north of here. He doesn’t talk about anything from his childhood, although then again Bernadetta doesn’t either. He likes cats, but he’s allergic. He’ll watch and read pretty much anything except procedurals and reality TV, though he really likes mysteries with amateur detectives. He likes cooking, and they end up swapping recipes kind of a lot.

He mentions an ex-boyfriend—Bernadetta tells herself it does not matter at all since he wasn’t going to be interested in someone like _her_ anyway—but then also an ex-girlfriend, so she goes back to the weird in-between hoping she’s been doing. And feels really boring, since she doesn’t have any of any kind of exes to talk about.

Yuri reads her fic. He _likes_ her fic, which makes Bernadetta make noises Dorothea says sound like a vocal exercise.

Bernadetta had done a drawing of Kyphon handing Loog his shield a few months ago, and Yuri _writes her fic about it_ , with the bass line of melancholy that grounds all his work but layered sweet on sweet on top of that. He sends her the link while she’s in line in the cafeteria and she squeaks loud enough that what feels like absolutely everyone at the school turns around to stare.

By the time they get their food and get to a table, Bernadetta has decided that spontaneously combusting from embarrassment isn’t going to happen and, since she has been denied the sweet oblivion of a fiery death, she might as well explain.

“Ask him out,” Dorothea says.

Bernadetta shakes her head. “I’m not going to ask him out!”

“Definitely ask him out,” Sylvain says, leaning over Bernadetta’s shoulder to read the fic. If she were Ingrid she’d elbow him in the stomach to make him move, but she isn’t Ingrid. “Wow, you were not kidding, he’s good.”

“I can’t ask him out! What if he says no?”

Ashe says, “But he might say yes, and that would be good, wouldn’t it?”

Dedue, who is Bernadetta’s new favorite person, doesn’t say anything.

Or, no, Ingrid is Bernadetta’s new favorite person, because what _she_ says is, “She doesn’t have to ask him out. They can just be friends.” Then she ruins it by adding, “But you should if you want to and the only reason you’re hesitating is because you’re afraid.”

All of Bernadetta’s friends are the _worst_ and the _least_ helpful. She is going back to her room.

* * *

~~«Hi, Yuri, I was wondering»~~

~~«My friends think»~~

Ugh, no.

~~«So really funny story, I used to have this terrible crush on you, ha ha»~~

Definitely not.

«You know Pan in your fic “Ribbons of Light”?» she finally asks, and waits.

Three dots. Yuri is typing for a long time, but all he says in the end is, «Yeah?»

«The scene at the well, where she’s thinking about asking Loog if he’s willing to accept her help and she doesn’t know how to ask.» Bernadetta hits send as soon as she’s done typing. «And she’s scared?»

«Yeah.» Three dots, again, and then nothing.

Bernadetta takes a deep breath. «And in the end she makes the safe choice and just asks him if she can help him?»

«Are you trying to tell me something, Bernadetta?»

~~«I was wondering if you»~~

~~«Well, I kind of like»~~

«Do you think she should have?» Bernadetta asks finally.

«There was a girl, once,» Yuri replies. «I didn’t know her very well, but she was a lot braver than she thought she was, and stubborn and talented. Nice kid.»

Ouch. Bernadetta chews on her lower lip, not sure what to say to that, but Yuri keeps typing.

«We lost touch, and I hoped she was doing okay. I hoped she was still drawing, and that one day she found whatever her Space Exploration Force was going to be, cause I could tell she needed one. I’d see things I wanted to tell her about, and I couldn’t.»

Bernadetta’s hands are shaking again. «You thoughr about me?» It had never come up before, not like that. She’d always been too scared the answer was going to be no to ask if he’d missed her the same way she’d missed him, like a hole in the ground deep enough to wrench her whole self when she stumbled into it. 

«Yes,» Yuri says. «And then you turned up in my comments again. Still talented, still brave. Sweet, too.»

«so i kind of had a crush on you then and i never reallyt got over it,» Bernadetta says before she can change her mind.

Three dots. She’s just trying to figure out whether she should _tell_ Yuri she’s going to change her name and move to another continent, or whether she should just do it unannounced, when he says, «I had a whole speech planned. But…good. I’m glad.»

After a moment, he adds, «Not glad that you spent years having to hope you got over me but glad you like me too.»

Bernadetta actually cannot think.

«The speech was better,» Yuri says. «Sorry. You kind of caught me off guard.»

Typing is still very hard, but she makes herself do it. She doesn’t want him getting the wrong idea. «No! It’s fine! It’s good!»

For a moment she just sits there staring at the app. There aren’t any dots, which means Yuri must be doing the same thing, and this is just—this is _silly_.

«Can I call you?» Yuri asks after what is either a million years or less than a minute.

«Let me get my headphones,» Bernadetta says, trying to ignore the feeling that her entire internal organs have been replaced with butterflies. They’ve voicechatted a few times before but not—not because it was important, just because. She finds them and plugs them in. «Okay.»

Yuri’s face lights up her screen, his smile softer than she’s ever seen it. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Bernadetta says. Her face kind of hurts from her own grin. “So this is…good. This is good, right?”

“This is good,” Yuri says, laughing a little. “Yeah. It is.”

**Author's Note:**

> I envision _Starsailors_ as kind of like _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_ with a little _Firefly_ for flavor. _Prince of Lions_ is absolutely shaped like _Merlin_.
> 
> “Per Aspera” is titled after the Latin motto _per aspera ad astra_ : “through hardships to the stars.” Just pretend this is standing in for a similar sentiment that is actually a thing in Fódlan, where nobody speaks Latin. That we know of.
> 
> For readers who may not have been in fandom at the time, Yuri’s original account got zapped in something like [strikethrough or boldthrough](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Strikethrough_and_Boldthrough) or [one of the FF.net purges](https://fanlore.org/wiki/FanFiction.Net%27s_NC-17_Purges:_2002_and_2012).


End file.
